October 26, 2009

On the Global South Steersmen's View of Rome and Hopes for a Disciplinary Covenant

Continued bluffing after the cards have been played is an ineffective strategy. Les jeux sont faits.

i.e., had all y'all bided your time instead of launching your own forays contrary to the Covenant's intent, your urging the Covenant might persuade. You cannot pretend still to be playing chess after knocking the board over, or in this case, imagine White can win by purloining a few of Red's pieces before the game begins.

Sorry for all the game analogies, but it really does seem to be a game, doesn't it? Played with human lives...

10 comments:

I cannot help but marvel at how transparent their obsession with homosexuals in the church are in this statement.

Aren't these folks in the Global South too Evangelical to cross the river besides? In any event, I would think these folks wouldn't even give the offer a second thought unless bishops could be married under this development ...

To your point a few posts ago, I await the actual document saying how all this will play out.

Thanks, R.B. If I'm not mistaken, Global Souther Orombi (not on the steering committee) said as much a few days ago.

I recall there was some suggestion last year of an Anglican Rite church in Africa, but at the time I thought there would be few takers.

I think over all there will be few takers worldwide, for reasons well laid out elsewhere.

-- most who want to swim the Tiber have already-- there's more to this than just not liking women and gays, including accepting the whole panoply of Roman teaching-- many Anglo-Papalists are already using Roman, not Anglican, liturgical material (which they won't be allowed to do under this plan!)--etc., etc...

I wonder it the "actual document" is being edited in light of the feedback from the early announcement? How very English!

I find myself strangely unmoved by the Romish/Anglican drama, except to feel a little sorry for Rowan, who was naive enough to believe that Rome would "negotiate" anything of real importance, and to take a wee bit of pleasure in the sight of the rug being pulled out from under certain troublemakers.

What I would like to know is what will happen to the debeate within the Anglican Communion when all these Anglo-Catholics don't end up going to Rome.They cannot very well continue as though nothing had happened.... or can they?

Thanks, GM. As I've alluded to earlier, this may all work to Rowan's advantage in the long run.

Yes, Fred; there is an unpleasant aroma to all of this, but the purveyors seem to have become accustomed to it, like workers in an abattoir.

Erika, good question. Time will tell. I suspect the scenario will be: several initial "takers" - some of them high profile; then a slough of indecision; followed by another second wave of emigration (or transmigration?). But the total will not, I think, be large. Much will hinge on what Synod eventually does with women bishops -- the "cause" in England.

Tobias, I agree that there will not be huge numbers of takers. The interesting question will be what will then happen to the debate within the AC.

Having refused a lifeline to Rome, can the opponents of women priests and of gay people remain as strident as they are being at the moment?Or will we get back to something close to the big tent we used to have, marked by a level of live and let live?

Erika, I think they will remain just as strident. The Evangelicals would not have opted for Rome in any case. The movement by a few Anglo-Papalists will be not, I think, change things much one way or the other. Of course, I don't know the English situation as well, but I don't think the absence of a few from the Anti-WO side will change the balance much.

What I was getting at in this post is that the far-right portion of the AC have already played their cards, and they don't realize that the game is essentially over, and they haven't won. The bulk of the Provinces of the WWAC are actually content (if not happy) with the big tent.

The Covenant will never survive as a disciplinary tool for Anglicanism, for if it were to do so Anglicanism would be dead.

Well then. Tobias, was I wrong in my assessment that the RCC's willingness to accept Anglicans into their fold is essentially indistinguishable from its indifference to their sexual predation scandals that keep cropping up around the globe? Until civil law caught up with them, their hierarchy had no issue with raids on the acolytes and choir boys. Why would their moral codes overlook those predations yet stop at taking advantage of discontents in sister denominations?

P.P., I don't understand your question in the context of this "thought" (which is about the GS reaction) -- but FWIW I don't think you are mistaken about what I would call the 'disordered pragmatism' of the RC hierarchy.

The disorder comes from taking actions so at odds with core values (in these cases both, the purity of the celibate priesthood). The pragmatism comes on one hand from an attempt to do a cover-up (I think it a mistake to think they 'had no issue' with pedophilia -- in the upside-down values at work they wanted to avoid scandal, which is another violation of the core principle of honesty and truth). On the other hand was an attempt to take advantage of a [mis]perceived problem within a neighbor's household. At its worst it could be portrayed as the man who puts a move on a friend's date when he sees tension in their relationship, and in the process cheats on his own date. The negative reactions from both sides appear to bear out this perception.

In short, not the hierarchy's greatest moment; though not its worst (the prize on that in recent years goes to the cover-ups.) The Anglican 'outreach' is a misstep as obtuse as much of the movement in the G.S. -- misreading the signs of the times and the Gospel, and the core values of the church: in fact, ignoring the three points Pope Paul VI insisted were crucial to renewal!

My Contribution to the Listening Process

"a book that honors the Word of God, the faith once delivered, and moves it into our cultural context."—The Episcopal New Yorker

"seeks to meet opponents on their own ground, assessing their arguments carefully and refuting them courteously.... The value ... lies not in its conclusions alone but chiefly in the way Haller reaches them. Whoever is charged with compiling ... resources [on same-sex relationships] will want to add this book to the list."— The Anglican Theological Review